Upregulation of vitamin D-related genes in schizophrenic patients. - GreenMedInfo Summary

Introduction: Low level of vitamin D is a potential risk factor for developing schizophrenia. Through interaction with its receptor () and the related enzymes (), vitamin D modulates neurodevelopment, neuroprotection, and immunomodulation. Its deficiency leads to aberrant neurodevelopment in schizophrenic patients.

Methods: In this case-control study, relative expression of,, andin schizophrenic patients was compared with healthy individuals. Total RNA was extracted from whole blood of 50 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls. Real-time PCR was used to determine relative gene expression levels of,, and.

Results: Significant upregulations were observed in(=0.004, 95% CI=0.77, 0.86),(=0.002, 95% CI=1.22, 4.98), and(≤0.0001, 95% CI=-2.721, 1.061) expressions in peripheral blood of schizophrenic patients compared with controls. Moreover, the gender-based analysis revealed upregulation of all genes in all the categories of male and female except forgene in male group (=0.234, 95% CI=-0.79, 3.35) andgene in the female group (=0.09, 95% CI=-0.21, 6.55). The age-based analysis demonstrated overexpression ofandgenes in all categories. Finally, there were significant correlations between expression levels of all genes (<0.0001), while no correlation was found between age and expression of genes.

Conclusion: We hypothesized that the observed upregulation of the mentioned genes in schizophrenia patients might be the result of a compensatory mechanism to protect the affected individuals against adverse consequences of this disorder. Such imbalance in vitamin D processing pathway might also be implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. However, future studies should be designed to confirm the results of the current study.